Brew Masters on Discovery w/ Sam Calagione

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I like the show a lot, but think there could be things done differently, but that's television. I will say that this is the first show dedicated to the brewing side/aspect of the subject and hope that it becomes a success, and other (shows) follow that might be more appealing to the homebrewer .

I am personally working on developing such a show, having recently completed my story :
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/arctic-alchemy-153577/

www.arcticalchemy.com

or Facebook here:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Arctic-Alchemy/197637538644

I have 4 or 5 other stories I am working on, and trying to get a producer to take this from the documentary film side to a syndicated series.

Be patient, Brew Masters is the first mainstream show of it's kind, some will enjoy, others will find the faults. Better than all of this , is it may become a catalyst for other shows.
 
iparks81 said:
Ive just watched a couple clips from hulu
....Not impressed, I'm afraid what happened to choppers and motorcycles will happen to Micro Breweries... I worked as a Mechanic building custom bikes before, During, and After the shows were popular on TV (discovery channel) and it did nothing but hurt the Industry (In the long run) while it was all going on we were selling bikes like crazy to the Deuche bags that wanted to be cool and ride once a week. but now that the craze is over the industry is in a Slump...(Poor economy is to blame as well)

I just dont see this beeing a good thing in the long run... I dont want Dogfish head Brewery (which I like their beer) to be the next Orange county choppers...
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I'm one example of the contrary. I used to work in the beer industry, in fact I worked as a rep for Dogfish in the early years. I was also an avid homebrewer. I moved on from beer, got involved in a different line of work and haven't done a ton of drinking since then (unless protein shakes count).

Watching Sam on TV has rekindled my love of a beer gut, I mean beer. I've spent more on beer since the first episode aired that I've spent in 5 years. I've found this site for the first time, made my first post (this one), have plans to purchase everything needed to make an all grain at home set-up, and am trying to get back into the industry.

So it would seem that while Sam played a role in my initial love of good beer, his show has inspired me again. While many fly by night fans will come to the foray, some people will have a rekindled interest, and others will become fans for life.
 
Yeah, whether you like the show or not, it's the old Hollywood mantra, "There's no such thing as bad publicity." While I do enjoy the show, I don't think any attention he would bring to the craft brew market or homebrewing would be bad for any of us.
 
bovineblitz said:
Is it just me, or does the show kinda make DFH seem like it has poor quality control?
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Why would you say that. They routinely show them checking and not letting any questionable beer out the door.

They have had yeast problems on some of the higher alcohol beer, but yeast is a living organism, its not like they put bad hops or grain in the batch.

Thier manufacturing process may have some process, but they show the quality people catching the problems as they should.
 
Not really. EFFECTIVE Quality Control/Quality Assurance is written with procedures implementing critical control points designed to prevent problems from happening in the first place. Sure, problems will still happen from time to time, but we've already seen two batches "dumped" (which I still doubt highly) in five episodes.

It seems a critical control point verifying yeast health is missing in their operation, or at least that's how the producers choose to portray it. Either way, it's a TV show and I don't believe any of the drama is real. For all we know they were just dumping the trub/yeast before bottling. It's not like we actually saw them dumping the whole batch. We just got a teaser shot of some brown liquid being dumped.

I still like the show and I'm still gonna watch it.
 
The problems with making the big, exotic beers they specialize in are explained several times in different episodes. The beer you see being tossed instead of bottled just represents the cost of doing business.
 
If they were just making widgets or something I would say yes they have a problem, but the yeast being living oranism is the wildcard in the whole process. They can quality check the grains and hops, and somewhat even check the yeast, but when they are pushing the yeast to the high end of its limit, bad things may happen. If I was dumping half a million in yeast down the drain, I would be calling in a yeast expert or use some sort of yeast that had a wider alcohol tolerance range.
 
Well IMO, if the yeast are this close to their limit, their recipe should account for that. Why not design the recipe so that at a certain point you pitch a hardier yeast you know will finish the job every time. Or, why not come up with a generally less risky recipe in the first place that's still true to the intent?

Perhaps it's the editing, but it's starting to look like a poorly thought out operation to me.
 
bovineblitz said:
Well IMO, if the yeast are this close to their limit, their recipe should account for that. Why not design the recipe so that at a certain point you pitch a hardier yeast you know will finish the job every time. Or, why not come up with a generally less risky recipe in the first place that's still true to the intent?
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Weeeell then they couldn't call it 120 Minute because it wouldn't be the same beer.

Perhaps it's the editing, but it's starting to look like a poorly thought out operation to me.
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Television producer-added (or emphasized) drama/hecticness. It's "reality" tv after all.
 
bovineblitz said:
Perhaps it's the editing, but it's starting to look like a poorly thought out operation to me.
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Yes, most poorly run operations pump out 75,000 barrels of beer in a year, grow 400% in a 3 year span, and are currently expanding despite a crap economy.

Most businesses should be run so poorly.
 
Yeah, Im sure if you put a camera in every company and you would see 99% have waste, inefficency, and production problems. You just care more because its beer in this case.
 
Reno_eNVy_446 said:
Weeeell then they couldn't call it 120 Minute because it wouldn't be the same beer.
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Yeah they could, they just needed to forsee this being an issue when they formulated the recipe. Seems like something they should expect to see.

It's too late now to change it though.

Don't get me wrong I like the show and I like Dogfish, and I know successful brewdays don't make good TV. It just comes off poorly, from my perspective at least.
 
mojotele said:
They carbonated it using the sugar that was in the original wort. That's what most professional brewers do. They seal off the fermenters at a certain point to let natural fermentation carbonate it. It's cheap and efficient.
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thats something i didnt know.. see, you do learn something new every day. :D.

Frodo said:
How the keg was carbed aside, I find it silly drama that they acted happy (if not surprised) it was carbed, as if they hadn't checked the gravity and knew that fermentation was occuring.
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It made me laugh, and I thought it seemed like a truly honest moment. Being that they had never brewed a batch with this wild yeast, I dont think it too presumptuous that there might be a bit of a mystery in the ultimate outcome.

mlyday said:
Yeah, Im sure if you put a camera in every company and you would see 99% have waste, inefficency, and production problems. You just care more because its beer in this case.
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I was thinking it odd that they seem to be dumping a lot of beer.. but youre probably right, I bet this happens. I also bet it happens more in places doing experimental stuff, or pushing the envelope... something that the DFH guys talk about on just about every show. Its just the price of making a crazy product and having high standards for their product.
 
sudsmcgee said:
It seems a critical control point verifying yeast health is missing in their operation, or at least that's how the producers choose to portray it. Either way, it's a TV show and I don't believe any of the drama is real. For all we know they were just dumping the trub/yeast before bottling. It's not like we actually saw them dumping the whole batch. We just got a teaser shot of some brown liquid being dumped.
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So, if I'm reading your post correctly, you are alleging that they possibly didn't dump anything at all? That they are completely lying about it?

I did find evidence of them having problems with 120 minute over the summer via Google. Hard to say whether or not it was the same batch. In one post on their website Floris mentions that they were using two separate yeast strains and the whole thing was rather experimental for them. I can't find anything on Chateau Jiahu, but I only looked rather quickly.

I don't know, it just seems like outright lying about such a thing would be monumentally stupid. I'm sure a lot of people out there could easily out them on such shenanigans - distributors and retailers for instance. I'm wondering if people are jumping from one logical fallacy to another - from assuming everything on TV is true to assuming everything on TV is false.
 
So who thinks Dr. Patrick McGovern is the coolest guy on the planet??

I remember reading his research on recreating the Midas funeral feast and beer that sam used as research for Midas touch. I didn't realize til watching the current episode that he does that all the time...I want to be him when I grow up.

He's the indiana jones of beer, the real beer hunter.
 
mojotele said:
I have to agree with the previous poster on this. Quality control is about catching problems. It is not stopping them from happening entirely.
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sudsmcgee said:
Not really. EFFECTIVE Quality Control/Quality Assurance is written with procedures implementing critical control points designed to prevent problems from happening in the first place. Sure, problems will still happen from time to time, but we've already seen two batches "dumped" (which I still doubt highly) in five episodes.

It seems a critical control point verifying yeast health is missing in their operation, or at least that's how the producers choose to portray it. Either way, it's a TV show and I don't believe any of the drama is real. For all we know they were just dumping the trub/yeast before bottling. It's not like we actually saw them dumping the whole batch. We just got a teaser shot of some brown liquid being dumped.

I still like the show and I'm still gonna watch it.
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I know a little something about QC and sudsmcgee hit on the key points. It's called In Process Testing. For example: the FDA has guidelines for the pharma and medical device industries. In order to "release" a product, it must meet the specs set in the guidelines and those specs are for "final product". That means for many of those specs, they only apply to the finished product. However, you have to assure that everything in the process has a spec and is monitored. If not, you could throw out a million dollar lot of product in the end because some other component did not meet spec and ruined the whole batch.

I realize this is brewing, not pharma and there is no guideline for final release that I know of. In the case of DFH Brewing, they had an internal spec for the finished product. It did not meet that spec and they dumped it.
 
From a purely definitional standpoint, QA/QC is generally a post-manufacturing testing of product spec prior to distribution to catch out-of-tolerance product. What some here are referring to is a more holistic approach to quality generally called Total Quality Management. TQM integrates the design, planning, and production into the QA fold to ensure that mistakes are avoided as well as caught after they happen.

That said, both instances of the problem fermentations at DFH were, in fact, caught during routine testing during the production process. The 120 was closer to finished than the other beer, but both problems were identified relatively early, and efforts were made to bring the product back within tolerance.

I think the challenge here is that these guys are pushing the absolute limits of microbiology with some of these beers. If this were a manufacturing operations, you could merely engineer the product to spec with a margin of error. Because you cannot engineer the yeast to spec, there is no ability to build in a margin of error and thus, you can see that failure's are inherent in that kind of process.

It is kind of like Formula One racing vs. your local auto factory making cars. The F1 team has to push the limits of materials and engineering and often, they push too far and their efforts fail. The local auto factory builds to within engineering specs and hence, their products are generally reliable (think Budweiser).
 
HoyaSaxa said:
From a purely definitional standpoint, QA/QC is generally a post-manufacturing testing of product spec prior to distribution to catch out-of-tolerance product. What some here are referring to is a more holistic approach to quality generally called Total Quality Management. TQM integrates the design, planning, and production into the QA fold to ensure that mistakes are avoided as well as caught after they happen.

That said, both instances of the problem fermentations at DFH were, in fact, caught during routine testing during the production process. The 120 was closer to finished than the other beer, but both problems were identified relatively early, and efforts were made to bring the product back within tolerance.

I think the challenge here is that these guys are pushing the absolute limits of microbiology with some of these beers. If this were a manufacturing operations, you could merely engineer the product to spec with a margin of error. Because you cannot engineer the yeast to spec, there is no ability to build in a margin of error and thus, you can see that failure's are inherent in that kind of process.

It is kind of like Formula One racing vs. your local auto factory making cars. The F1 team has to push the limits of materials and engineering and often, they push too far and their efforts fail. The local auto factory builds to within engineering specs and hence, their products are generally reliable (think Budweiser).
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This makes perfect sense. Formula One racing teams put a lot more money into a car than, say, GM's pick-up truck. However, it's probably more likely that a formula-one will be sent back for re-builds a lot more often.

Part of what we pay for with "Premium" beer is because they have a proportionally larger "failure" rate in comparison to production. Part of this is that they're not repeating the same batch as many times. Part of it is that they're not brewing the same beer 35 times a week. In the end, though, it shows their commitment to quality and consistency. If they didn't dump the beer, they'd be berated on this forum for being "sell-outs" and being "patronizing" to their fans. I have no doubt they dumped what they say they dumped because no matter how "famous" your company is, there's plenty of company employees that would talk about your dirty little secret without thinking twice about the company's well-being. It doesn't matter if there's "employee ownership" or not, there's going to be an employee or two who wouldn't think twice about trashing them publicly.

I love(d) the show! This is bigger-quantity, high-quality brewing being publicized! How awesome is that? :ban:
 
HoyaSaxa said:
From a purely definitional standpoint, QA/QC is generally a post-manufacturing testing of product spec prior to distribution to catch out-of-tolerance product. What some here are referring to is a more holistic approach to quality generally called Total Quality Management. TQM integrates the design, planning, and production into the QA fold to ensure that mistakes are avoided as well as caught after they happen.
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Thanks for that explanation. That definition of QA/QC falls in line with what I learned in my statistics classes, and your explanation of TQM resolves the conflicting explanations given after my post.
 
I apologize in advance bc I know it is posted somewhere in this thread, but is there a link to the newest episode? I missed it this week.
 
Its done for this season. It was only 5 episode. I emailed them at that was their response. They said no dicision had been anounced for any more. Ill copy the email here when I get back to my pc.
 
Wow cancelled already huh ? I guess they need to film it in the Bering Sea or something.
 

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